Longing for Lander

Thank you for a particularly interesting issue of Columns. Though not much of a sports fan (even of UW sports), I read it from cover to cover. I am following the rebuilding of Husky Stadium with particular interest, since my deceased husband’s father was football coach in the “new” stadium in the 1920s.

I hope you will write more about all the new dorms, which either have been built recently, or are about to be built. I remember when Lander Hall was new. I was a student adviser in the very beautiful red brick Women’s Residence Halls near 45th Street. Perhaps these four “halls” are now dated inside, but on the outside, no other living facility on campus can compare with their beauty.

Regarding the rebuilding of Lander Hall, you ask ‘What’s not to like?” My response is “The cost of living there, perhaps?” Is there now, or will there be, a range of living facilities at different prices?

—Elizabeth Jallie Bagshaw
B.A., Sociology, ’53
M.S.W., ’76
Seattle

As one of the first residents of Lander Hall—I moved over from Terry Hall as soon as construction was complete—I read the article in Columns with mixed feelings.

Compared with the needs of current students, Lander may have seemed spartan, but for us it was great. All the deficiencies of Terry had been corrected. The food at Lander, while not great was OK, by ’50s standards. All in all, a good experience; I lived there for three years.

I have recently learned that my high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina is to be torn down, property sold and a new campus created; now this. I haven’t been on campus for at least 40 years. Until I go back, I guess Google Earth will have to keep me up to date with changes.

Hail the Olympians

Libby is a Bellevue-area native, and though her undergraduate degree is from Dartmouth, she is a current UW law student. She is also extremely active in sports physiology and psychology for women and youth athletes in the Seattle area. As my daughter says, “Libby Rocks!”

A UW Winter Olympics medal winner not mentioned in the recent Columns article is Peter Kennedy, who holds a 1955 B.A. degree in economics and whose UW career stretched from 1946 to 1955 in large part because of the demands of a highly successful ice skating career.

Peter and his sister Karol (non-UW), known as “The Kennedy Kids,” participated for the United States in pairs figure skating in the 1948 and 1952 Winter Olympics, earning silver medals in the latter; they skated in six World Championships, winning gold in 1950 and silver in four other years; and they won five U.S. Championship titles from 1948 to 1952.

Also, unless it’s been moved within the past year, the classic Pocock-built cedar eight-oar shell that the UW-Olympic crew rowed to victory in Berlin is suspended from the ceiling in a place of honor in today’s Conibear Shellhouse.

Don’t Dis the Tri-Cities

In the June 2012 edition of Columns, we read of a book of poetry published by University of Washington Press: Plume by Kathleen Flenniken.

We have lived and worked in the Tri-Cities for almost 35 years. We want to assure your readers that Ms. Flenniken’s growing up “in Richland … next door to the Hanford Reservation” was not, in any sense, a “tragedy.” We are very proud of the contributions the Hanford Project made over the years to national defense, scientific knowledge, energy production, and economic prosperity.

Even now, in the waste cleanup and restoration phase of the Reservation’s life, Hanford employs highly educated, skilled professionals who are proud of the Reservation’s history and heritage, the important work they do, and the community in which they live. Even in today’s stagnant economy, the Tri-Cities has a better rate of employment than anywhere else in the state. It also has a comfortable climate, good schools, beautiful vistas, thriving agriculture, and many opportunities to enjoy our three rivers.

There is nothing tragic about the Tri-Cities. It’s a great place to raise a family, to visit, to live. We do not know that the sentiments expressed in the book description are Ms. Flenniken’s; we hope they are not because they display considerable ignorance and prejudice on the part of the book description’s author.

Valentinetti Puppetry

Celebrating the 15th anniversary of its founding, the Valentinetti Puppet Museum in Bremerton preserves the legacy of Aurora Valentinetti, ’43, ’49, and the early founders of the puppetry program in the School of Drama.

Under the direction of Professor Glenn Hughes, the art of puppetry was introduced as an integral part of the drama curriculum in the early 1930s. In 1942-43, as the male members of the department faculty were being drafted for WWII, young Valentinetti was hired to take on the task of teaching puppetry.

For the next 50 years she taught hundreds of students the art and craft of making puppets. Generations of Northwest audiences were introduced to this spectacular art form, first through the University Puppeteers, and later her own company, Valentinetti Puppeteers as well as her own program on KCTS-TV.

In 1993, former drama student, Marshall Campbell, ’65, invited Valentinetti to contribute some of her collection to Campbell’s emerging organization Evergreen Children’s Theatre in Bremerton. Conceived as a school of drama for children and introducing them to professional performances of both live actors and puppetry, Campbell further hoped to establish a museum of puppetry.

Now in its third home, the Valentinetti Puppet Museum has grown into a significant showcase of the international art of puppetry. From a core collection provided by Campbell and Valentinetti of 250 the holdings, now exceed 1,300, gifts from local, national and international donors. Three major international gifts, 2 from China and the most recent from Bremerton’s Sister City, Kure, Japan establish the museum as a must see institution. Under Hess’s leadership the museum has broken ground in introducing puppet exhibits to audiences in Western Washington from Long Beach, Olympia and Seattle as well as throughout the Kitsap Peninsula.

Valentinetti, who celebrated her 90th birthday in 2011, continues to share her love of puppetry. Help support this legacy so it may continue for many generations to come.

2 Responses to Letters

I was interested in your reference to Mr. Bill Foege, epidemiologist, who was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work eradicating smallpox.

Your readers might be interested to know that Mr. Foege is not the only UW Alumnus involved in the global eradication effort. My sister, Judith Johnson-Sandberg (73), traveled the mountains of Afghanistan by Russian jeep, horse, and donkey, but mostly on foot, giving small pox inoculations.

After 2 years at the UW, Judy took time away from her studies for a hitch in the Peace Corp. Afghanistan was thought to be among the toughest places to eliminate the disease because women could not bare their skin to a man, nor could Afghan women travel beyond their home. As a solution, 24 young American women, 16 of whom finished their assignment, fanned out across the mountains and desert inoculating the Afghans against the disease.

One wonders whether those 24 young women or the thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars spent in destruction did more to secure our peace and safety.